If anybody uploads the British Eurosport video of her SP, there is a really funny moment when she is sitting waiting for her result.

Simon Reed commented about Melissa not "having anybody sitting along side her", and Chris Howarth immediately says "I'll be back in a minute". Simon then replied "I bet you will!", and then added "Volunteering - he's a team player is Chris Howarth"

I probably don't need to add this, but Melissa is absolutely gorgeous!!! So, I don't blame Chris for offering up his services! I would...!!!

Re: 4CC Ladies Free Skate

Both legs don't work to create counter rotation. They work on the take off.

And what someone whose never done a triple jumps thinks really doesn't matter that much. All skaters pivor that way on their take offs and none of the judges penalized them, because doing triples off a pure back takeoff is almost impossible especially if consistency and safety are a high concern.

Most skaters would jam their take offs doing that.

Skaters have been pivoting that way since doubles jumps were elite level content and certainly concerned triples became the normal.

Play all the videos in this thread in slow motion and feast your eyes.

The fact that one judge disagrees doesn't change the fact that they various advocating for a rather dangerous technique that would injure a ton of skaters. If ibwerw a coach I'd ignore that opinion. As a skaters, I surely do.

There are a lot of statements like this in the skating world from people who hide behind their credentials.

Additionally, something clarification is needed on that statement. The pivot that happens in a normal jump take-off is somewhat different from the way a lot of coaches teach low level skaters to do toe loops, for example. At the higher level it's more of a turn than a pivot and it's not an emphasized movement, just a side product of the takeoff mechanics.

That's about as oblivious as the coaches who insist a loop jump actually lifts off a LBO edge.

The total pick yes serves as a center for rotation on the takeoff. If you don't "pivot" you risk throwinbthe jump off trajectory and leaning back in the air. Also, it's too hard to achieve good air position jumping like that in triples or quads.

Re: 4CC Ladies Free Skate

From that article...

Salchow and loop jumps must takeoff backward to receive full credit under ISU rules that are now being enforced by technical panels. Some coaches teach their skaters to pivot on the toe pick until they are totally forward just before they lift off the ice. These jumps are downgraded.

Makes absolutely no sense and is dangerous. That article is worthless.

Since I'm feeling fun today, I've gone through and taken screen caps of all Mao Asada's take-offs from her Free Skate (except the second double axel, which has basically the same as her first as far as the take-off is concerned). According to that article you linked, all of her jumps should have been deemed Underrotated - literally all of them... Even the double jumps...

Some of them I snapped earlier than I would have preferred, but I wanted to avoid a frame skip. Point being, according to that article you're citing, every single one of her jumps would be deemed UR just due to the take-off, but that's simply not what the judges are doing, because any decent judge knows that it's not possible to consistently train and land jumps safely trying to jump going backwards - ESPECIALLY for edge jumps. If you're a really strong [vertical] jumper you can pull a Yu Na Kim and jump-rotate a Toe Loop or Flip, maybe even a Lutz if you're an athletic phenom - going backwards - but a triple axel off a straight line would lead to a ton of URs since you won't have any decent rotational energy transference, and Triple Loop/Salchow straight off a backward edge will probably eventually land you in the hospital).

The only jumps of Mao's that I would UR due to the take-off are the Axels. She has bad technique on the take-off and rotates WAY too much on the ice before she takes off. It's literally the only reason why she can even dream of doing a triple axel. With a proper (i.e. clean) take-off she wouldn't even be close because she simply doesn't jump high enough. The take-offs for her double is basically the same, however she has more than enough airtime since that one requires less due to less rotation in the element. Her Double Salchow actually rotated past forwards before she left the ice, but I chalked that up to coincidence since she did double it and that is possible the reason why she decided not to do the triple. That one I'd have probably UR'd as well for rotating too far across before taking off.

As for the jumps that look somewhat before forwards, notice the knee bend she still has in the screen caps. She's already that far, and hasn't actually taken off yet. Just covering that base.

After watching the slow motion, the triple toe loop in combination with the double axel is clearly UR on the landing, so the judges actually got that one right.

What that article states probably applies to the 1920s to 40s when most skaters did single jumps in their programs. Yep, I can do a Salchow or Loop single off a clean edge, too. But no one could pay me to do doubles that way, because concussions aren't fun.

And for fun:

Dick Button's Triple Loop in 1952. Note the Take Off Mechanics.

As for the Lutz discussion:

It sounds more difficult than a triple-axel take off, to be honest.

A Lutz take off IS almost as difficult than an Axel Take-off. Axel take-off is like a forward Loop take, off, basically. Two things jump out when you compare the two:

1. Axel is a forward edge take-off with no assistance. Psychologically that is more difficult than any backward take-off. Additionally, the Axel comes with the risk that the skater can let their weight fall back too far and completely destroy the jump. If you slip off the edge you will Waxel. There is no assistance. It is exceedingly hard to Salvage an Axel compared to pretty much any other jump.

2. The Axel has an extra half rotation over the Lutz, which indirectly increases the risk:

You have to Jump higher.
To jump higher, you either need some insane verticle jump skills, or you need more speed. To quote Kim Yu Na about her Lutz: "The faster I go, the higher I jump."
You have to pull in tighter.

More Speed, More Height, Tighter Rotations = Really Volatile Landings. Harder to Control and very hard to check out of (having a good knee helps this). That's why you don't see many 3Axel-Loop (or Quad-Loop) combinations in Skating. The jump is rotating so fast and tight that it's impossible for most skaters to check out of it properly to put a loop after it. In most cases, they'd end up doing 3 turns out of the first jump.

The only ladies that have done truly clean triple axels in competition so far are Ito and Harding. I think Tiffany Chin may have done a couple, but I personally haven't seen them (I should look into that...). Asada's jump is so cheated on the take off, that with the allowances the rules leave on the landing her "triple Axels" often rotate (in the air) less than the average triple toe loop or salchow. Let's just hope the judges don't decide to crack down on it at the wrong time.

As for Asada suddenly fixing her jump issues. She will have to do the best with what she has. I think it's a bit naïve to expect any factorable changes in her technique between now and then. She's had the same funky take-offs and UR isues since 2005 in some cases. She only seems to have improved because she actually regressed quite a bit over the years and is only recovering form that regression (similar to Slutskaya's 98/99 years, except she came back with improved jumps and Mao just came back with a renewed fixation on a flawed 3Axel jump).

Wow... that takes dedication. I don't claim to be any sort of expert on jump mechanics. However, I don't think Asada's axels are as cheated as you describe. Take this side-by-side comparison with Plushenko for example. Yes I know that's probably the best one she ever did in her life and she clearly skids farther than Plushenko but still, she does maybe 1/3 a rotation on ice and definitely does not "rotate less than the average triple toe loop". She certainly prerotated less than Evan Lysacek in this video for example.

Wow, SkateNater. I’m not quite sure how to understand your motivation to suddenly start examining Mao’s jump pre-rotations from a discussion about how ISU should define a lutz, but nevermind. You are true figure skating fan. And I’m glad to hear that you think Mao’s pre-rotations are no more than the average, except the axel takeoff, which you claim is excessively pre-rotated. I don’t agree with that claim. Mao’s quarter turn pre-rotation is not excessive at all as CarneAsada’s clip comparing Plushenko and Mao’s triple-axel shows. Even Midori had a quarter turn pre-rotation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpJX7myU3Hc.

As for Mao’s technical changes, I don’t expect overnight changes at all. In fact, I think a lot of the technical modifications have already occurred over the course of three years: If you look at this clip, you can see some obvious and not so obvious changes in Mao’s jump techniques: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxP_5lKUDNs. It’s too bad the clip doesn’t show the set up as well. In any case, the proof is in the pudding, and the techical changes are already showing up in her scores. She’s earning more GOEs in some cases (like her loop which she regularly gets +2 GOEs) and earning less negative GOEs in some cases (like her lutz which got less than -0.5 at 4CC).

But this by no means isn’t to say that her technical improvements are completed. I think she’s still working on improving her entry speed, changing set up, and also achieving a tighter air position more quickly after take off, i.e., to coordinate her body parts even better. If you look at the loop comparison in the YouTube video, you can see that Mao has already learnt to snap into a tight air position more quickly than before, but Mao’s toe jumps are still a work in progress.

Wow, SkateNater. I’m not quite sure how to understand your motivation to suddenly start examining Mao’s jump pre-rotations from a discussion about how ISU should define a lutz, but nevermind. You are true figure skating fan. And I’m glad to hear that you think Mao’s pre-rotations are no more than the average, except the axel takeoff, which you claim is excessively pre-rotated. I don’t agree with that claim. Mao’s quarter turn pre-rotation is not excessive at all as CarneAsada’s clip comparing Plushenko and Mao’s triple-axel shows. Even Midori had a quarter turn pre-rotation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpJX7myU3Hc.

In the screen cap of Mao's triple axel, she is almost backwards on the take-off. She is WAY past a quarter rotation on the take-off, which is average. I linked the video specifically so that those interested in the context of these pictures can get that. She turns her foot out on the take-off to cheat it by quite a bit and lessen the amount of rotation she has to do in the jump.

When you add in that cheated take-off to the 40% UR Legally allowed in a jump landing (stating 40% cause if you're at 45 you'll likely going to get dinged, bear with me), it's a substantial decrease in in the jump's rotation (from 3.5 down to about 2.75 turns in Mao's case, while a man doing a clean triple Axel will be doing about 3 full rotations in the full jump if you subtract 45 degrees on the take-off and 45 degrees on the landing). Yes, that quarter rotation is a big deal, especially for a jump worth so much, especially since she never lands going straight back on that jump.

Mao's "forward take-offs" on her other jumps are normal. My pictures were simply to illustrate that. If the article you linked is to be believed, then the judges should have given Mao a UR on literally all her jumps, and the Axels should have been downgraded as they are closer to doubles than triples. Do I think she should be dinged for UR on those jumps. Obviously not. I was illustrating why I thought the information you linked was incorrect and not worth using as evidence of anything.

Plushenko's triple Axels are clean. To be honest, Ito had the same take-off issues that Mao has (excessive pre-rotation on the take-off). Harding didn't have these issues. She did her Axel using a technique practically identical to what most men display.

As for Mao’s technical changes, I don’t expect overnight changes at all. In fact, I think a lot of the technical modifications have already occurred over the course of three years: If you look at this clip, you can see some obvious and not so obvious changes in Mao’s jump techniques: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxP_5lKUDNs. It’s too bad the clip doesn’t show the set up as well. In any case, the proof is in the pudding, and the techical changes are already showing up in her scores. She’s earning more GOEs in some cases (like her loop which she regularly gets +2 GOEs) and earning less negative GOEs in some cases (like her lutz which got less than -0.5 at 4CC).

Her Loop is easily her best jump, when she doesn't UR it... Her jumping technique is flawless for it (the way she is able to jump straight up and maintain verticle in her jumps) and it's the only take-off that she doesn't have any trouble with, although it's a rather unorthodox take-off (when done as a solo jump).

But this by no means isn’t to say that her technical improvements are completed. I think she’s still working on improving her entry speed, changing set up, and also achieving a tighter air position more quickly after take off, i.e., to coordinate her body parts even better. If you look at the loop comparison in the YouTube video, you can see that Mao has already learnt to snap into a tight air position more quickly than before, but Mao’s toe jumps are still a work in progress.

I'm always rooting for skaters to improve.

Mao is pretty quick in snapping her legs in but her arms often lag, which causes the rotation in her jumps to be delayed. Whether or not she makes it around has less to do with how quickly she can accelerate her rotation and not really her maximum rate of rotation, which is relatively constant from what I've seen. Sometimes she is quicker than other times in getting the rotations up. When she's fast, she completes them, when the delay is too long, she URs, and she's able to stand up a lot of her URs because she is so vertical that she lands on a really balanced axis even when the jump has to hook on the landing. Ideally, both have to go in quickly and at the same rate. This is what Tara Lipinski (and Jenny Kirk, Rudy Galindo and Tim Goebel are two men who jumped like this) did, and it's why she was able to rotate clean triples consistently with 1/2 the height Asada gets on her jumps.

Again, as for me linking every take-off, it was to make a point about the other discussion - and especially since you cited a link written by a judge that stated the ISU rules are that jumps which pivot forward on the take-off are flawed and judged as UR. That article said this about several jumps (specifically cited loop and salchow in this context as well, which I quoted). That article is incorrect. Don't really care who wrote it. They are wrong, and it's been this way since the 40s and 50s, as Dick Button so elegantly displayed.

Getting coaches to realize that jumps do not take off backwards or off clean edges is a bit of a big deal as coaches who teach these backward take-offs are forcing their skaters to train elements in ways that are extremely inefficient and in some cases injury prone.

So yea, I do take issue (not personally, or in vain, though - nor do I blame you for it) when that misinformation is peddled.

My motivations are that I enjoy discussing (debating, heatedly discussing???) the technical aspects of figure skating, and I have a safety first stance on it. I think some people miscalculate how seriously some people may take information they find on web forums or Google. Don't want to go to the rink and see someone bang their head on the ice because they read in a forum they should be doing something in a way that is unsafe or not optimal.

Well, I'm glad you weren't the one judging Mao's axel jump at 4CC, where she got +1.57 GOE in the short. You can assert that her new axel takeoff is badly pre-rotated, but if it were so extraordinarily bad, don't you think that CoP judges would have given her slighty less GOEs? Did Lysacek ever get equivalent GOEs for a successfully landed waxel?

And I tend to think that Tonya Harding's axel technique is strange and incomparable. Her set up to the axel looked like she was going to do a lutz. I have not seen any other famous textbook axel jumper, man or woman, do it the way she did it.

I think, fact of the matter is, most skaters do pre-rotate their jumps in practice than the ideal dictates. (In http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tWmm4AKmgc, Tatiana Malinina's flip/lutz has no noticable pre-rotation on the ice. Her lutz in particular is amazing.) I think skaters rarely successfully do their jumps textbook perfect, and so it would only be right to be dinged for a for a pre-rotation if it is particularly bad. Defining what constitutes a downgradable 'pre-rotaton' is probably something that ISU should clarify, along with defining what a lutz jump is, as well as defining what an downgradable under-rotation is.

I'm sorry, but did you even watch the videos I provided? Those Axels have much more than 2.75 revolutions in the air. They have 3 at the very least, the same as the number of revolutions done by men with triple Axels that are "clean" according to your standards. You can do math by saying 3.5-0.5-0.25=2.75 but then you're ignoring the fact that Mao is not entering the skid perfectly forwards and leaving the jump perfectly backwards (to say nothing of grossly overestimating the skid angle). Indeed, if you look at the Plushenko/Asada comparison video, you'd see quite clearly that when her weight is fully on the ice, she's facing quite a bit more than 180 degrees away from when she was beginning the step up into the jump.